In case you've forgotten or your vision has become clouded by the dark side of the Force, I'm going to remind you that there are eighteen planets--plus the other smaller worlds--available for exploration in The Old Republic. It is by far the largest and most detailed virtual representation of the galaxy far faraway that we adore more than our wives, husbands, children and pets.

Each planet has its own design, its own feel and its own story. They each offer players an opportunity greater than just exploration. They offer the possibility for players to create their own scenes, their own stories, their own roleplay.

Want to be a tree-hugging Jedi hippy? Hang out on Tython. Want to be an eskimo? You have Hoth. Want to be a spice-addicted gambler? Nar Shaddaa will make you feel right at home.

Today's Friday Focus asks: which planet is best for roleplay? Let us know your answer and reason in the comments below.

Welcome to the fourth edition of Worlds of the Old Republic. For viewers who are new to the series, Worlds of the Old Republic covers the planets in The Old Republic. Parts I, II and III have already covered a number of these worlds, so be sure to check them out. Two worlds associated with the Jedi made it to the spotlight in Part III, consisting of Tython, the homeworld of the Jedi, and Ilum, the home of the Adegan Crystals. Part IV takes a step into the wild side, covering three worlds engulfed with crime lords, spice and smuggling. Hutta, Nar Shaddaa and Quesh all share a similarity -- the Hutts hold a share of power and control over each of the worlds. Smugglers rejoice as this is your territory. Keep your blasters holstered and give yourselves a break from the Sabaac tables by taking a journey through some of the worlds featured in The Old Republic that you will most likely call home.

Let’s sit down a moment and talk. We’ve had some good times, haven’t we? I mean yes, the podracing went on for far too long, and there was some sketchiness over Jacen Solo in the EU. And here, at SWTOR-RP, we’ve also had some good times. If you can’t remember at least one piece of roleplay which moved you, right down there in the heart, or which at least made you go “whooo” in a tone which is much more enthusiastic than my writing allows for, I’d be surprised. Hell, I’d offer my condolences.

So why am I here, on this hallowed day, nammering on about all of this? Because I have a very simple message for the lot of you:

Embrace all the roleplay offered to you.

"But Taeghen," I hear you cry out in despair. "There are many of us in the community who are stupid, or annoying, or have died like eighteen times, or who are so made of special snowflakes that 'Let it go' is sounding out behind them like a crude form of psychological torture." And that’s true. Likely, some of the people reading this will put me in at least one of those categories. But it’s not important. Consider the following:

Look at what we have to work with. Look at the sheer richness of Star Wars, the overwhelming diversity of it, the depth of thousands of people working together to build something glorious. We would not have the Mandalorians if people hadn’t decided that Boba Fett was that awesome. We would lack all of the tremendous detail on the Sith’s ancient ways had Palpatine not intrigued and repelled us. And then it grows even further: the Chiss are here because of Thrawn. How many bounty hunters have sprung up from this lot?

So just how many skills can your character realistically have in one life-time? Let's consider that carefully. But before we do, lets take the c.v of a real-life person in their late thirties and describe it in Star Wars terms.

Jaxar is a 37 year old med-tech. She started out adult life with seven years as an officer in the Republic Army. During that time they earned an undergraduate degree and, after picking up an injury that ended her front-line service, she went on to pick up a post-graduate degree in Interplanetary Relations. After her niggling injuries proved too troublesome, Jaxar resigned from the army and spent a few months as office worker and a maitre de on Pesh while waiting for their Sector Rangers application to be approved. She then spent four years in law enforcement before eventually choosing her love for her husband over her love of the job. After leaving law enforcement behind for good, she made a respectable income out of her favorite hobby and became a professional artist. Working alone a cramped studio all day every day to make ends eventually wore her down. Looking for some social interaction and to do something constructive for the community again, Jax started volunteering in a residential care home for elderly sentients. Right after that, she decided she wanted to be a nurse. After three years of study and retraining, she completed her nursing degree and started looking for work on the local job market and hiring fairs. She's recently taken on a role as senior med-tech at a busy Republic Space Station where her husband works inspecting spacer's insurance claims.

The blaster bolts have flown, the bodies have fallen, and your party has just successfully guided a convoy of medical goods through a three-way Nar Shaddaa gang war. Now’s the time for things to wind down. The event’s passed that few-hours mark, and the characters are starting to settle down for a bit of post-combat banter. A friendly checkpoint manned by a charming Rodian and his cohorts doesn’t seem like a problem, until your group decides to stiff them their fee, and the covers come off a mounted heavy blaster cannon. As the suppressive fire starts and your party cowers behind the increasingly colander-esque vehicles they were meant to protect, you can be sure that your GM is that rarest, most fiendish of beasts: a rug puller.

The lesser-spotted rug puller can be identified by its sadistic glee, sanity-absconding smiles, and occasional cackling laughter. This is not your standard hard-mode ‘I’ll just put an impossible boss at the end of this one’ GM, neither is it the oft-lamented serial tosser of negative modifiers. The rug puller is a more nuanced creature. It works entirely on the principle of subversion. What you thought would be the challenge of the situation will be a distraction. The colourful bit of flavour lurking in the corner will in fact be the crux of the whole event, and that boss you were planning on murdering and feeding his own viscera? Be prepared to meet his three children, kindly wife, and loveable pet, as they invite you in for dinner.

Beware of anything remotely harmless in the presence of a rug puller, but also beware of anything so blatantly obvious that you know this particular GM would never make that the actual threat. You can be sure that they’ve been watching you, and they know what you think they’ll do. The only safe way to behave around a rug puller is to beware of everything. Only once your character has the reflexes of a hopped up ferret and the survival instinct of a cockroach hiding in a main battle tank will they be safe. Sort of.

My character stands in a cargo bay full of fluffy stuffed toys. A cheap and cheerful trader with a scruffy beard tells him to 'get sorting'. Amidst the variety of varactyls, reeks, cuddly wampas, and other assorted animals are the gizka my character has purchased. They must be seperated and collected into an army of multi-coloured inanimate and fuzzy pests.

How this situation came about is a long story, but it hinges on the chap whose ship we're writing in: the trader. He's been roaming around Nar Shaddaa for some time, selling what he insists are 'genuine Beastie Babies' for thirty creds a pop (twenty if you ask nicely). In a world full of whiskey sipping, downward glaring, occasionally smirking spice-dealers, bounty hunters, and inexplicably placed Sith, an honest (sort-of) trader trying to make an honest (sort-of) buck by selling collector's toys is a real breath of fresh air.

The sorting commences over friendly banter - toys are thrown about and their facial features compared to friends. My character's partner in crime soon has a wonky eopie sticking out of the back of her trousers, and a vrake stuffed down her top. When the sorting is (despite a singular lack of focus on the task) finally complete, some thirty-odd stuffed gizka toys (plus a gorg for good measure) have been collected, and everyone retreats to the kitchen for a tea-break.

The trader's live-in assistant plays a racing game in the corner of the room, ignoring all but her high-score as the kettle boils. The conversation casually drifts to the brand of the tea, and before I can say "slick business sense," the trader has sold a few samples of reasonably priced tea leaves, including an industrial sized sack which he offers to arrange transport for.

It occurs to me, in the midst of this shamelessly free-wheeling merchantry that this is how spice deals should happen, at least on Nar Shaddaa where it is legal. There's no shadiness, just a casual segue from the sale of one item to another. I wasn't aware that gizka toys were the equivalent of a gateway drug to the tea trade, but I feel duly enlightened by the experience.

Writing is an art. It requires eloquence, creativeness, passion, and motivation. We've seen some great writers come and go at SWTOR-RP, and those that have left their imprint here will never be forgotten.

Recently, we at SWTOR-RP received a staff application from Takrael who sought to join our reporting team. After a quick glance at the application and what he had to offer, it was an instant done deal. Consequently, here we are, introducing a very welcomed addition to the writing team: Takrael.

Motivations to play The Old Republic differ significantly, but for Takrael, it's his new-found friends that he became acquainted with in TOR that keep him coming back for more. He plays the above-pictured Zabrak who is a professional networker working for the Ministry of Logistics on Nar Shaddaa. To read up on its story, continue reading below after the break.

Does Takrael like Star Wars? We asked him the question, and this is what he had to say:

"I'm not really much of a fan of BioWare's setting. Big space-opera stuff doesn't appeal to me as much as scruffy folks going about their lives and malfunctioning astrodroids clunking about. What I like about the Star Wars setting is the down-to-earth vibrant dinginess it has at its soul - I feel like what made the original films work was the world the (sort of silly) plot winds its way through. When people enthuse about Star Wars, they enthuse about the characters, the aliens, and the bits and bobs more than the plot."

Takrael is looking forward to writing some "thought-provoking" articles for our front page, as well as some in-character pieces to provide new opportunities for the roleplayers of The Old Republic.

It has been informed to us recently through the Imperial HoloNet Network that the sphere of Law and Justice has issued a large bounty on the traitorous defector known as Lord Cadel Korinth. Though the INN erroneously states him as “one of their own,” our own sources within the sphere of Law and Justice informs us that he is not to be considered as such at present.

Lord Cadel Korinth, as the astute reader will be aware, is a former high ranking member of the organisation known as The Eclipse: a group that is now largely non-existent after their leaders' traitorous defection to the Republic. And while Lord Korinth never defected himself, there are those who question what role he played in the defection and what responsibility he had. Should he have foreseen his master's treachery? And what of his political alliances? He is still, or so rumors goes, married through blood with a member of Sidre Lessia’s family (and as some rumors would have it, likely interbred too, not that we’d pay any attention to the stories on noble Alderaanians and inbreeding; We all know how they are).

Today, we interrupt the typical Community Spotlight portion of the week to bring you breaking news about the game and the new expansion. An interesting article came to light and it quite simply needed writing about!

With the new expansion, pretty much everything is about to change; from the expansion content to the mainstream game! Not to mention those who have subscribed or purchased the expansion will be able to play an instant level 60 toon so that you the player can enjoy all of the juicy content that is to come.

On top of this all, it's out with the old and in with the new. New companions that is. Don't worry too much about your old ones. While you were frozen in carbonite for five years, they were chilling out somewhere in the wider galaxy getting on with their lives:

"While you were frozen in carbonite for five years, your companions still had to live through the passage of time. In your absence, their lives went on — but the choices you made involving them might have something to do with where their lives headed after you disappeared."

With the new expansion, the guys who brought us the game we all know and love focused on improving the game experience, giving you more content overall and importantly for some of us, if not most, our in-game decisions will have more impact on our companions and the decisions they make, thus impacting us! Not only this but to explain what some may consider an inconsistency:

Touted to be one of this year’s biggest parties, the organization of Penumbral is turning the party life on Nar Shaddaa into one big extravaganza with delicious drinks, decadent cuisine, spectacular live auctions, sets by DJ D-Fader, and incredible party favors as they celebrate the anniversary of their establishment. Dress to impress and celebrate with some of the Empire’s most well known, powerful and trendy. Penumbral will be opening the doors of its capital ship, the Ascendant, for all to partake in this fun-filled event! The Ascendant will be docked over Nar Shaddaa, and invitations will be sent, running a shuttle service from the surface of the moon to the ship itself. Expect a tour from the very personnel serving Penumbral, offering a rare glimpse at the ship’s unique features and high-tech upgrades along with prizes, gifts, and all around fun!

The night will be filled will the following:

Art Auction: View some of the most talented artists in the Galaxy and gain a chance to bring home a piece of art!

Gambling: What's Nar Shaddaa without Pazaak? With a 0 credit buy in, you can bring home the 1 million credit pot!

Guest Raffle: Sign the guest book for a chance to win 2400 Cartel Points. Tickets are FREE!

Open Mic Improv: Whether you are a poet, singer or comedian, take the stage and show off your talent.

Ship Tour: Catch a glimpse of the state of the art Harrower class and all its amenities, ranging from the primary Reactor, our massive turbolasers to our comfortable and clean conditions.

Weapons are prohibited to all guests on board for safety concerns. Guests are not authorized to venture off on board the ship without a guide or prior permission. Security will be present for guest safety and any and all queries.

Should you have any questions or inquires, please feel free to contact Darth Umbra ((Luniara)).